Tag: spark

University is stressful and picking one can be even more so. Picking a course, picking a University. Is it the best university for me? Will I like the course? Should I stay at home or move away? These are just some of the questions we put in front of ourselves when we go to University.

When I picked my University choices it was nerve wrecking, because you really don’t know if you’ve made the right decision. Especially for me, moving so far away from my family. It’s not easy, just make the decision that is best for you.

I chose to study BA (Hons) Journalism at the University of Sunderland, purely down to my love of writing and news. So it was perfect for me.

One things I very quickly learnt was that you need to really get involved in your course and get experience. Luckily for me The Hub at the top of my University building has five multimedia platforms; SR News, Spark, Fashion North, SportsByte and Northern Lights. I joined the news team in my first week, initially only wanting to write for SR News.

After leaving the hub and thinking of all of the platforms, I decided that I was going to come out of my comfort zone and join the Spark news team. Which at the time was called SR News Tonight, but we’ve had a reshuffle and called ourselves Spark Reports to fit into the Spark brand.

I must admit, I was scared. Radio, with my accent – ha! Never in a million years would I have thought I would see the day. But, surprisingly – I loved it.

I do news shifts now every week, creating news packages and voicing them. I love it, I mean I’ve had to train my voice quite a lot and it is far from perfect but I have come on so much from my first package! I’m proud of that.

I’ve now presented two of the shows at 5.50pm and I can’t describe to you how I felt. I was ridiculously scared, my mouth went dry. I literally felt like a bucket of sand had been poured down my neck, so I necked a glass of water mid show. Had to be done, I could go on no longer.

But it was a great experience for me, it just gives you that buzz (and no I’m not saying ‘bus’ in my accent – joke referring to one of my earlier posts.)